In which I partake in numerous outdoor activities and sunburn my nose

Wow, two posts in a week’s time? I must be feeling frisky…or at least verbose.

Anyway, this past weekend was sufficiently excellent that it warrants a post all its own. Ever since the beginning of the semester, when we missed a Student-Association-sponsored trip to the nearby Billabong Sanctuary, a zoo/interactive animal experience, Natalie had been clamoring to go. So Friday we once again borrowed Catherine’s car and made the twenty minute journey, taking with us three of Natalie’s closer American girlfriends: Meredith, Tricia, Rachel.

Billabong Sanctuary is, essentially, a tourist trap (or at least I thought so). It’s certainly not someplace that I would be compelled to visit on my own. After paying the $24 (!) entrance fee, seed is available to feed the “wild” animals that roam the main area of the park: geese, ducks, ibises, the occasional kangaroo. There are also various animal information sessions, feeding displays, and, in what was clearly the most lucrative of the park’s attractions, chances to handle/have your picture taken with any number of animals. These cost $10 each. Natalie bought the opportunity to hold a koala and wombat, Rachel and Meredith shared in the koala-love, and Tricia and I saved our money.

Billabong’s animal enclosures contain only natural, native Australian wildlife: dingoes, fresh-/saltwater crocodiles, pademelons (another marsupial, similar in stature to a wallaby), wombats, cassowaries, koalas, emus, etc. The enclosures seemed to be in relatively poor condition, however, which contributed to my distaste for the place. The water in the crocodile pen, for example, was completely green with algae. The feeding of the crocodiles, however, was sufficiently terrifying to keep me from ever getting in an Australian river. Also, I have to admit that the koalas were some of the cutest animals I’ve ever seen. The late, great Mitch Hedberg has a short routine about koalas which kept running through my head while watching them:

“My apartment is infested with koala bears. It's the cutest infestation ever. Way better than cockroaches. When I turn on the light a bunch of koala bears scatter. And I don't want them to, you know? I'm like, "Hey, wait, come back. Let me hold one of you... and feed you a leaf. Koala bears. They're so cute, why do they gotta live so far away from me? We should ship a few over. And I will apprehend one. And hold him. And pet him on the back of his head.”

After several hours of looking, feeding and holding, we’d all had enough. My night, on the other hand, was just beginning. The JCU ultimate team had scheduled a glow-in-the-dark game for that night. It was, in a word, life-altering. OK, perhaps that’s stretching it a bit. But it was super-fun. The game took place after dark at a nearby park (a 40 minute walk from campus). Each player was issued six glow sticks: one for each ankle and wrist, and two for the neck. We played with a light-up disc. One team, wearing blue glow sticks, appeared as ghosts from a distance, isolated circles of blue somehow moving in coordinated harmony. Our team, in fluorescent green, was noticeably less ethereal; however, that did not diminish from the entertainment value. The darkness of the game invited sloppy, turnover-filled play and unwanted, unwarranted nudity from two of the more adventurous guys in blue. No one wanted to guard them, so blue dominated. Afterwards, there was a Chuck Norris-themed party.

Compared to Friday, Saturday was fairly dull, although I did count cars for an hour as part of an assignment for my transportation engineering class. Oh, and the checkout girl at Woolworth's made fun of me for buying natural peanut butter.

Sunday, however, was another story. I awoke at 5:45. Why would I do this, you ask? Well, the powers that be had organized a little ultimate get-together with students at the School for Field Studies, a tiny institution of 27 students located a few hours inland of Cairns. They spend all of their time doing field study on environmental science issues. We were meeting them about halfway, at a tiny community called Mission Beach, for a day of ultimate followed by a barbeque at the beach. Mission Beach is about 2.5 hours north of Townsville, so we had to leave extra early. Hence, the 5:45 wakeup time.

I hate when people say “it really is a small world.” I absolutely can’t stand it. Coincidences happen, and I love it when they do, but we need to think of something else to say for times when you do something like run into someone from Swarthmore in Mission Beach, Australia. That’s right, folks. In among the School for Field Studies group was one Marshall Morales, Swarthmore class of 2008 and sophomore year first semester roommate of my good friend Ross Littauer. It was surreal. I don’t know Marshall that well, but we have a lot of the same friends, so we’ve spent a little time together. Still, though, what are the odds? I still can’t really believe that it happened. Furthering the string of coincidences was the presence of a girl who goes to Butler, a scant five-minute drive from my home in Indianapolis. Strange.

After that shocker, we drew teams (it was a hat tournament, you see), and played two games in hot, hot temperatures before dying. No, wait. We stopped and ate lunch. No dying involved. After lunch we played JCU vs. SFS and we destroyed them, most likely because they only play non-competitively once a week on Fridays and only one or two of them had actually played for real before (I think). After that, the beach! The water at Mission Beach was actually warm enough that no one froze to death (unlike Sydney, or the pools in Townsville, or anywhere else that I’ve tried to swim in this country), so I stayed in for awhile and swallowed unhealthy amounts of sea water while trying to body surf. A delicious barbeque followed, and we headed home at about 7:00, arriving back exhausted at JCU at 9:30.

It was a good weekend.